


What's in a Name

by katrinawritesthings



Category: SHINee
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 09:38:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10659870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: the one where jongtaekey work at a pet shelter, minho comes in to flirt with jonghyun, taemin has a crush on kibum, and kibum hates how taemin is allowed to name all of the new catsHe likes to sit in here and giggle with Kibum about how Jonghyun is so cocky normally but turns into a puddle of goo when someone tall and confident comes along. It distracts Kibum from how Taemin gets lost in the pretty cupid’s bow of his lips.tumblr





	What's in a Name

Taemin fluffs gently through White Gold’s long fur, searching for knots with his fingers before starts brushing her through with the comb. She’s a sweet-tempered little kitty, but he doesn’t want to upset her in the slightest. Cats are too precious to be hurt. Too good for this world. Too pure.

“Yo, I found the flea collars.” Kibum waltzes into the grooming room and tosses a box at him, one that slaps to the floor and makes White Gold start and hiss. Taemin shushes her with soft little pets as he frowns reproachfully up at Kibum. Rude. Kibum looks guilty, though, and he crouches down to give her a little scratch under her chin. “Sorry, sweetie,” he coos. The way she purrs is enough for Taemin to forgive his friend-slash-crush, he thinks.

“Go grab Yolk or Spawn and help me out here,” he says, nodding towards the last two kitties that need to be groomed. Kibum closes his eyes and shakes his head with a heavy sigh. Taemin grins. He loves Kibum’s extreme distaste for his cat naming choices.

“I can’t believe you named the fucking cat _Yolk_ ,” he mutters as he stands up.

“He’s yellow-orange,” Taemin says defensively. “It fits.”

“I can’t believe you named the other one _Spawn_ ,” Kibum continues, ignoring his excuses and being even more incredulous.

“Well, you wouldn’t let me name her Satan,” Taemin pouts. Spawn was the next best thing. Kibum scoffs as he sits down with Yolk in his lap.

“She’s a fucking _cat,_ Taemin, you don’t name cats after the devil.”

“You do when they’re black and red with an upside-down cross on their foreheads,” Taemin replies. Kibum rolls his eyes and Taemin quietly appreciates the weird mix of handsome and pretty that is Kibum’s face. “Here,” he says, handing Kibum the short hair brush to get started on Yolk. “Also, there’s a tall boy out there and Jonghyun’s blushed like, ten times in twenty minutes.” He points through the large window that gives a view from the kitty grooming room from the back yard at where Jonghyun is holding up a little daschund to show the taller dude. He’s also doing it to sorta-kinda-not-really hide the fact that’s he’s blushing again as Tall Boy speaks. Taemin thought blushes were supposed to be like, a semi-permanent thing, and not make people look like a stoplight, but Jonghyun’s blush just keeps fading away just quickly enough to rise right back up when tall boy speaks again. It’s kind of entertaining, to be honest. He’s sure it must be leaving a great impression with Tall Boy.

“A tall, dog-loving, smug boy?” Kibum asks, looking up interestedly. Taemin nods. He knew Kibum would be just as into this as he is--they both know that all three of those things are Jonghyun’s biggest weaknesses. He likes to sit in here and giggle with Kibum about how Jonghyun is so cocky normally but turns into a puddle of goo when someone tall and confident comes along. It distracts Kibum from how Taemin gets lost in the pretty cupid’s bow of his lips. Taemin thinks he uses some kind of special chapstick/lipgloss combo.

It’s very attractive.

~

“His name is Minho.”

Kibum barges loudly into the kitty play room with his information, which probably would have sent all of the kittens crawling all over Taemin into a frenzied, scratchy panic if they weren’t already sleepy and tired with their claws covered. Taemin takes a moment to appreciate how his life didn’t end right there before cracking one lazy eye open to peer at Kibum. His hair looks nice today. He did the thing with the chalk dye to pink up his blonde bangs.

“Whose name is Minho?” he asks.

“Jonghyun’s tall boy,” Kibum says. He comes to sit next to Taemin and pull Lizard off of Taemin’s elbow and into his lap. “His name is Minho and he’s gonna be a Junior like you when school starts up again and he’s on the swim team and is also one of those assholes that plays ultimate frisbee during lunch.”

“Tell me you didn’t stalk his Facebook,” Taemin mumbles, stretching out even more comfortably over the soft floor. Spud meows his discontent at his movement and scoots up to nuzzle under his chin again. Taemin chuckles softly and gives his lumpy brown head a little scratch. Next to them, Kibum scoffs.

“Of course not,” he says snootily. “Jonghyun did. And he wouldn’t shut up about it while we were giving the cats their baths. Which is why I came to find you, by the way,” he adds, poking at Taemin’s side with a finger. Taemin wiggles away with a scrunches up face before Kibum pokes him in the right spot and makes him jerk all of the kittens away. “Sludge ran away as soon as it was her turn and we need you to go find her and give her her bath because you’re the only one that she actually likes.”

“Kibum,” Taemin whines, turning his head to give his best pout up at his friend. “I’m busy.” He gestures at all of the kitties on him for emphasis. He can’t just _get up_ right now. That’s like, illegal.

“You’re taking a nap with some cats, Taemin, come on,” Kibum says, tugging on his elbow. “Slack off when you actually have time to slack off.” He reaches for the kitten on Taemin’s thigh--Steve, Taemin thinks--and tugs her off. Taemin whines more.

“I’m not slacking off,” he says. “I’m playing with them. And cuddling them. Playing and cuddling is very important to them in their young stages of development, Kibum.” He picks Spud up in gentle hands and nuzzles his cute face, gives him a little kiss. Spud purrs and nuzzles him back. “See?” Taemin asks, looking up at Kibum pointedly. Kibum just rolls his eyes and takes Spud from his hands.

“Go do your job and wash that twitchy ass cat,” he snaps. “You know I pulled a favor with Jinki to get you this job this summer.” He takes Toast off of Taemin’s stomach as Taemin sighs. God damn it. What a cheater. Reminding Taemin of how much he owes him for this. Ugh.

“One of these days I’m gonna do something big for you and then wave it in front of your face whenever I want you to do something,” he grumbles, gently nudging Sloth off of his shoulder. “Then we’ll see how you like it.”

“I’m sure,” Kibum hums, and when Taemin struggles to his feet and looks down, he finds Kibum sprawled out over the ground now with the kittens nuzzling all over him. He’s also smirking smugly as he pets Toast’s fuzzy little head. Taemin humphs, but he doesn’t really mind that much. He is grateful that Kibum got him this job here. A summer job full of kitties and with the added perk of a cute babe to crush on isn’t anything he can be grumpy about, even if it does mean that he has to coo a dirty kitty out from behind a bookshelf again.

The fact that Jonghyun immediately greets him with a description of Minho’s Freshman year field trip to some museum is something to be grumpy about though, so he makes a note to whine about it to Kibum later. They can get food once their shift is over and complain about him together, and then make bets on when he’ll ask Minho out. It’ll be fun.

~

Every time Kibum has to say the word “yolk” when talking Luna through the adoption papers, Taemin can hear him dying a little bit on the inside. He loves it. He finishes his rummaging through the desk drawer for a good pen just in time to look up and see Kibum’s mouth twitching into that half-grimace it does when his soul is suffering but he still has to be polite. What a time to be alive.

“Here you go,” he says brightly, handing Luna the pen to sign her name.

“Oh, thanks,” she smiles. She signs the papers, then picks up her new kittycare supplies in one hand and her new kitty in his carrier in the other. Yolk meows his pleased little meow when she reaches in and gives him a little pet and Taemin breathes a little easier. He knows Luna from his art class last year. She’s a sweet girl and Yolk likes her. They’ll get along fine. They wave her off and Taemin turns to rest his elbow on the desk and wiggle his eyebrows at Kibum.

“She liked his name,” he says loftily. Kibum sighs a deep sigh and shakes his head.

“Why does Jinki keep letting you name things,” he mutters. Taemin scoots closer and rests his chin on Kibum’s shoulder.

“Because I’m fucking _great_ at it,” he hisses. From the look on Kibum’s face, he knows that he’s remembering their pet snail from two summers ago that he named Radical Larry.

“Talking about names?” They turn in unison to see Jonghyun jogging up to the front desk in that peppy way that he usually does. Taemin grins because if he heard the words “I’m fucking great at it” and immediately thought about Taemin’s skill at naming things, then it must be true. Kibum closes his eyes and sighs a painful sounding sigh, probably for the same reason. “Because,” Jonghyun continues, pulling his phone out of his back pocket, “I just gave this new litter of puppies the _best_ names.” He taps through a few screens, then thrusts the phone into their face to show them said litter of puppies.

“Roo’s litter?” Kibum asks, confused. “I thought she had them on Wednesday.” He glances at Taemin for confirmation and Taemin nods, sharing in his confusion. He was there, peeping over Jinki’s shoulder while he helped Roo through it. For a little bit, at least, before he left with less of an appreciation for the miracle of birth than before and a queasy stomach. That was all three days ago, though. Jonghyun nods with a pleased little grin.

“Yeah, but Jinki promised I could name the next litter that came along, so,” he says. “Look, look--” he points again at the screen like he’s not leaning so far over the counter that he’s practically shoved himself in between them. “This one is Minho, and this lighter one is Mino, and this little lady is Minjung, and this nerd over here with the wiggly patches of fur over his eyes is Mingus, and this last one here is Jongho.” He looks up from the screen with bright eyes and a brighter smile, grinning at the pair of them like he’s waiting for their approval. Taemin stares at him for a moment, and then shifts his gaze to Kibum. They lock eyes for a second before Kibum clears his throat and turns back at Jonghyun.

“I--really?” he asks, and Taemin snorts. He was expecting something a little more eloquent than that. Kibum elbows him discreetly while Jonghyun nods.

“Yeah, really, aren’t they great?” he asks.

“They’re… something,” Taemin mutters. “You’re sure you wanna set those in stone, yeah? You see no possible downfall to them?”

“No, why?” Jonghyun frowns like Taemin is being rude by questioning his choices. Taemin glances at Kibum again, who meets his eyes for a split second.

“No reason,” he says quickly, before Taemin can reply himself. “We think they’re great names, don’t we, Taemin?” He elbows Taemin again, less discreetly, and Taemin takes the excuse to grab onto the soft skin of his arm and hold him closer. He doesn’t get what Kibum is going for, but he’ll play along, he guesses.

“Yeah, totally,” he agrees, nodding earnestly. “Mingus the pup. Totes rad, bro.” He gives Jonghyun a wink, just for good measure, and Jonghyun grins brightly with their acceptance. He stuffs his phone back into his pocket and jogs off, calling something over his shoulder about him being late for important dog business. Taemin frowns after him. “He has to know, right?” he asks, slipping his hand from Kibum’s wrist to lace their fingers together almost a hundred percent casually. “Like, Minho comes in here every weekend. Both days. He has to… understand, right?” He has to. It’s been like, a month.

“I don’t know, but I’m definitely gonna stick around to find out,” Kibum says, squeezing Taemin’s hand once before he lets go to tug the computer keyboard over and look up their schedules for the month.

~

“No, no, it’s like, you stuff the bread into the cupcake tray, right, and kinda squish it so it’s like a little cup, and _then_ you put the bacon in, and then you crack in the egg and just put it in the oven, and then it’s like, a little breakfast cup thing, you know?” Taemin takes his hands away from Toast to demonstrate, making a little cup with them in the air. “They’re _really_ good, dude.” Kibum doesn’t look convinced; he keeps his nose wrinkled as he combs through Sir General McSergeant’s fur.

“I don’t know, it still sounds weird,” he says. “Like, wouldn’t the egg be overcooked by the time the bacon was done?”

“Well, you precook the bacon for a few minutes in the pan first.”

“So you get a whole pan dirty and have to deal with bacon clean up just to have a weird egg cup thing, is what you’re saying,” Kibum says, frowning even more than before. Taemin sighs, rolling his eyes. Kibum and his fucking _thing_ about doing as little dishes as possible. He’s gonna make these things for him one day, damn it, and show him how great they are and then shame him for missing our for so long. One day soon, hopefully, before his crush fades and he won’t appreciate the experience as much. “Hey, wait,” Kibum says suddenly, “fuck.” Taemin looks up from where he’d gone back to grooming Toast and immediately finds the source of the problem: Minho’s here already.

He can see him and Jonghyun through the glass, Minho’s face filled with pure amusement and Jonghyun’s a neon fucking red as he holds up one of the new puppies. Taemin thinks it’s Mingus.

 _“Fuck,”_ he hisses. “How the fuck did we miss him coming in?”

“You distracted me with your fucking--breakfast cup things,” Kibum snaps back. Taemin doesn’t even bother trying to argue that they’re of equal fault. He’s much more interested in trying to scramble as discreetly as possible with Kibum to sit with their backs to the wall next to the back door. They planned this together, their whole secret eavesdropping adventure, like a month ago, and have been waiting for the day that the puppies would be ready to introduce to people. He’s never felt more regret in his life that he missed the moment when Jonghyun realized the flaw in his naming process, but there’s still a whole conversation to follow. Something is better than nothing. He pats his lap quickly to get Toast to come sit with him again as Kibum reaches up and opens the door just a crack.

“So, um, do you, wanna, um, do you wanna play with Minho, Minho?” Jonghyun is asking in the most forced casual voice on the planet. God. This is better than Taemin could have imagined already. He scoots closer to Kibum to lean up against his shoulder and get into a better hearing position.

“I think I wanna play with Jongho, actually,” Minho hums.

“Fuck,” Kibum hisses. Jonghyun does the same, albeit much more violently, and Taemin giggles.

“Right, yeah, of course,” Jonghyun mumbles, and then there’s rustling as he puts Mingus down and picks up the new pup. “Um, here,” he says. Taemin assumes the weak little yips are from when Jongho switches hands from  Jonghyun to Minho.

“Cute,” Minho says conversationally. “Is there any particular reason, maybe, for why you named this little guy Jongho?” he asks. Kibum snorts; Taemin can’t control his curiosity and peeks up as carefully as possible. Jonghyun’s face is less red than before, but it’s still a natural shade of pink as opposed to the purposeful blushes he’d been perfecting over the past month to seem cute. It’s one hundred percent fact that he actually practiced how to blush, and Taemin knows this because he’s seen it in action multiple times, but he’s still barely brought himself to believe it. Like, what a waste of effort. As he watches, Jonghyun’s blush gets even darker.

“You--I--you know full fucking well why, you tall shit, so you just--shut your--tall mouth.”

“Inspiring,” Taemin mutters, slipping back down to breathe it into Kibum’s ear. Kibum’s put his face in his hand and is shaking his head with exasperation.

“Literally all of his attempts at subtlety, gone in five seconds,” he whispers back. Taemin grins. He’s more amused at how the only insult Jonghyun could come up with was to call Minho a tall asshole.

“Yeah?” Minho says. “And if I don’t shut my mouth? What’ll you do then, huh?” Taemin peeps up again for just enough time to see Jonghyun bouncing like a fucking pup, all grumpy and poking at Minho’s shoulder. Minho looks like he couldn’t be more amused.

“I’ll fucking--I’ll kiss you so damn hard,” Jonghyun says threateningly. “And then you won’t be smirking for like. Five minutes. Because then I gotta go take the Fluff Squad for their walks.”

 _“God,”_ Kibum breathes. Taemin would bet his next paycheck that the two of them out there would have heard his ugly snort if they’d been any less wrapped up in each other.

“What if I wanna go with you?” Minho hums.

“Yeah? Yeah? You wanna go? You wanna go, bro? You wanna fucking go? Huh? You wanna go? On a date? With me?” Jonghyun’s tiny little “Please?” is almost lost when Kibum reaches up and pulls the door closed.

“Fucking incredible,” he says, shaking his head fondly. He hands Taemin his grooming brush and Taemin blinks, looking at and then down at the cat still in his lap. Oh, yeah. Toast blinks up at him lazily, swishing her tail against his shin. He brings his hands up to fluff through her fur and find where it was that he left off before their grand eavesdropping adventure started. “Minho says yes, and then they flounce off around the block holding hands and giving each other shit about their heights and having sloppy makeouts and living happily ever after and shit,” Kibum says, wiggling his fingers for emphasis on the “happy” part. Taemin giggles. That’s pretty much it, yeah. “Way too fucking late, to be honest,” Kibum says next. Taemin hums curiously.

“How do you mean?” he asks. “It’s only been like, two months.” Two months at eight days a month. A little over two weeks, total. That’s a reasonable amount of time, he thinks. Kinda fast, for him, actually. Kibum scoffs.

“But they’ve been into each other from the beginning,” he says. “And they both knew it. They wasted all of that time not making out when they could have been making out instead. They didn’t even need to wait.” He shrugs; Taemin scratches under Toast’s chin absentmindedly as he thinks. Hmm.

“You think so?” he asks. Kibum nods as he brushes gently around Sir General McSergeant’s shoulder scar.

“Yeah,” he says. “Like, shit, if you like someone, just tell them. Either they’re into you too and are okay with being a thing or they don't and if they don’t and they’re not a piece of shit about it then you just go back to normal.” He holds his cat’s face in his hands and gives him a little kiss. “We get enough shit from life to give it to ourselves, too,” he tells it. Taemin snorts. That’s just… such a Kibum thing to say. He watches as Kibum shoos Sir General McSergeant out of his lap. Well, If Kibum wants him to say it, then why the fuck not?

“Hey,” he says, nudging Kibum’s side with his elbow. Kibum turns to him with a questioning hum. “I like you,” Taemin tells him. Kibum blinks, taken aback for a few seconds.

“What, really?” he asks. “Like, in a crush way?” Taemin nods. He’s not all blushy and embarrassed by it or anything. He just hasn’t said anything about it because he hasn’t been that affected by it and he figured it would go away once school started up again and he had other shit to worry about than what shampoo Kibum uses to make his hair smell so nice. “You haven’t been sitting on this for the whole time we’ve known each other, right?” Kibum asks reproachfully. Taemin snorts. God no.

“Of course not,” he says. He probly wouldn’t even have the energy to keep up a crush for four years. “Just since a week after you got me this job and I started seeing you like, every day. You’re really cute.” He wiggles his eyebrows with an earnest little grin; Kibum smiles a tiny smile himself, looking flattered.

“Oh, well, cool,” he says. Taemin cocks a brow, then slips his hand down to lace his fingers together with Kibum’s. He holds their hands up in askance and Kibum nods easily. Oh, good. He likes Taemin also. “See how easy that was?” Kibum asks, squeezing Taemin’s hand. “Now we’re like. A thing. We should go rub our efficiency in Jonghyun’s face later.” He grins and lets go of Taemin’s hand to start cleaning cat fur out of his brush. Taemin grins back, mildly giddy. This _is_ nice. And totally efficient. Kibum is great.

“Hey, so, uh,” he says, giving Toast one last brush over and then gently nudging her out of his lap. “Wanna get started on the two months of sloppy makeouts that we’ve been missing out on?”


End file.
